The College Hill house on Berkshire Road in Ann Arbor had a lot going for it: A desirable Ann Arbor Hills neighborhood of classic older homes, hardwood floors, granite countertops and cherry cabinets in the kitchen, a huge first-floor master suite with walls of windows and a screened back porch.

But there was one problem: It was packed to the gills with too much stuff: Furniture, books, toys, multiple beds crammed into a single room and years worth of family treasures.

While the clutter made the house a home for the family living there, it was detraction when it came time to put the house on the market. It covered up the beauty of the house.

That’s when Annie Dodge and Debbie Swartz come in.

Like a controlled tornado, they enter houses that are going on the market, taking out the clutter and knick-knacks, removing children’s art on refrigerator doors, taking down the collage of family photos on the wall and leaving a clean but coordinated look that shows the best face of a house. Readying houses for sale is part of the growing business of staging.

With soft house prices and a buyer’s market, it’s important to find an advantage, the business partners, owners of A2 Home Staging Consultants, said.

While some home buyers can see beyond the clutter, most can’t, said Swartz. “Only a small percentage of people can do that. Most people have to see it.”

Having a neat and stylish house is also key for making a good first impression on-line, Dodge said. More than 40 percent of today’s homebuyers view houses on-line first. “You only get one first impression,” Dodge said.

It’s like a first date, it’s important to put strengths front and center.

The Berkshire house has an enclosed porch in the rear of the house. But the living room was so packed with sofas and chairs, two desks, rows of lamps and children’s toys, the view was blocked. Also, a massive rug overpowered the room, and the hardwood floors were hidden.

“You want to highlight what’s valued, even though that might not be the way you live,” Dodge said.

Their work is in two stages: First they make suggestions to tidy and clean up the space. They make suggestions on what furniture to keep, and what should be removed.

Next they accessorize a house, giving it a finished look wall art, pillows, silk plants, rugs, towels and more.

Since they began in 2009, Dodge and Swartz have collected a warehouse filled with sofas, chairs, framed art, rugs, towels and bed linens, three iron bed frames and mattresses that customers can rent.

They have a handful of designer tricks: A number of blow-up mattresses and furniture slip covers to quickly coordinate a room. And they’re learned to buy their inventory at stores such as Ikea, where the furniture is light-weight and easier to move.

They follow the three Cs, they said: Clean, clutter-free and color.

While a house doesn’t have to be boring beige throughout, colors such as dark pink that can quickly turn a room ugly.

At the Berkshire house, they added a shower curtain in the downstairs bath along with polka-dot towels and a throw rug to add a pop of color and to coordinate with the wall color. They added a ceramic bowl in the dining room to tie in the color scheme and they used a quilt found in a drawer to dress one of the upstairs bedrooms.

They did other simple things, such as removing the curtains that hung inside the corner cabinets of the dining room, revealing the depth of the built-in cabinets. An upstairs bedroom had too much furniture and too many pillows.

“We take a lot of furniture out to make it flow better and to make it appear bigger,” Dodge said.

Staging a house has a range of costs, from a two-hour consultation ($150) to a full staging, which includes renting furniture and decor (around $1,500 for two months).

Even a two-hour consultation can make a difference. They consulted with a homeowner who had blankets over their windows.

“The way you live in a house isn’t the same way you sell it,” Swartz said.